MujahidAbdullah

The kaffir world loves to criticize Islam as backwards and uncivilised because we reject what they call art - they call the statue "David" a masterpiece, a beutiful work of art by the master Michaelangelo - We call it a Blasphemic work of Pornography. As many of you kow, the sculpture entitled "David" is Michelangelos depiction of our beloved Nabi Dawud - and the christians claim to revere and respect Dawood , yet they mock him by 1) portraying him at all and 2) by portraying him stark naked - yet, if you were to put a naked picture of any person who praises "david" as a work of art on display for the public to see - many of them would take you to court - utter Hypocracy. Recentley I heard a report on NPR talking about the Egyptians discussing with Jamaat al Islamiyya represenitives what art will be allowed in the new Egypt - Jamaat al Islamiyya obviously rejected the idea that sculptures and paintings of human beings would be allowed - and for this they were attacked by the "civilised" Egyptians who said there is no art in Islam. What sadened me was the fact that Jamaat Al Islamiyya didnt bring up Caligraphy - Islamic Caligraphy isnt just fancy writing - its an act of Ibadah.

Caligraphy is one of the lost sciences of Islam - few people can brag that they ahve Ijaza in caligraphy - and few people are even asked IF they have ijaza in calligraphy. My teacher of Caligraphy is Abu Saifullah Mujahideen whose teacher was Abdur Rahman At Tabrizi - this chain of caligraphers goes through to Imdad Al Hasani and to Ibn Muqla (RA) - your probably not impressed by those names, because youve probably never heard those names - thus, the science is dying.

the caligraphers art revolves solely around the Alif - depending on the script you are writing and the type of pen you are using - the Alif determines the entire work. The Caligraphers unit of measure is the single square dot or Nukhta, made by the quill of his pen - to help you visualize this "dot" - imagine the diamond shape that sits above the Qaf - If you are writing in Naksh script, the Alif is 5 "dots" high by 1 "dot" across - Thuluth is 9 "dts" by 1 "dots". In addition, all letters of the Arabic alphabet are variants on the Alif.

You may be asking, how this relates to Islam? well, the Alif itself symbolizes Allah - it resembles the number one, representing Tawhid. just as all letters stem from the Alif, all things come from Allah - the Ismi Dhat is Allah and not ilaha - Alif is the first letter of not just this, but all of his 99 names - a person can be hakim, but there is none that is Al Hakimu, excecept the Al Ahad, Allah.

Hadharat Sultan Bahu(RA) starts his kalam with "Alif Allah, chambe dee bootee, Murshid man laee hoo" ( Alif , Allah, the jasmine planted in my heart by my Murshid). The Awliya understood the secrets of the Alif, this why they often used it in their poetry.

In Surah Al Araf verse 172, Allah says - "When your Rabb drew forth the children of Adam from their loins their descendants and made them testify concerning themselves (saying): "Am i not your Rabb?" They said "Yea, we do testify" (This), in case you should say on The Day of Judgement: "of this we were unaware.""

The first words Allah spoke to all of us were "Alastu bi Rabbi Kum" begining with Alif - and our reponse, "Balaa" begining with the baa.

Now for all of you out there who are not familiar with the reperestation of Alif, please dont misconstrue this as equating or comparing Allah to His creation - Alif is but a creation of Allah, and nothing is comparable to him, no human can represent him in any form no matter how hard they try.

But this shows that early Muslim caligraphers like ibn Muqla, who created the rules of caligraphy used in the courts of the kings and used to write out the Quran before printing presses connected their trade to Allah and Islam. Calligraphjy is the Islamic artform, while the christians were disrespecting Allah by portraying him with limitations and in human form on the ceiling of the sisteen chapple, Muslims were conforming to the commands of Allah by represnting the attributes of Allah in calligraphy, while conforming to Sharia and not violating the basic princibals of Aqeedah.

What is sad, is that Calligraphy is dying in the Muslim world, even amongst Arabs